Gulou square

Nanjing Drum Tower was built in 1959 when Beijing East West Road was opened up. There are Zhongshan Road, Zhongshan North Road, Central Road (the above three trunk roads were opened up in the Republic of China), Beijing East Road and Beijing West Road. Five trunk roads meet here to form the transportation hub of Nanjing. It used to be a place for large-scale gatherings and activities in Nanjing. Its name comes from Nanjing Drum Tower on its west side.

The Drum Tower Square was built in the 1930s. It got its name because it was built here in the Ming Dynasty. It is now the intersection of five main roads, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan Road, Central Road, Beijing East Road and Beijing West Road, and two branch roads, Gulou Street and Tianjin Street. It is an important traffic hub in the city and a large traffic square. Before Zhongshan Avenue (including Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan Road and Zhongshan East Road) was opened to traffic in May 1929, only Jiangning Road, Tianjin Road (formerly known as chishi Street) and Beijing Railway passed through Gulou area.

After Zhongshan Avenue was opened to traffic, Gulou became the intersection of Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan Road, Baotai street and Tianjin road. Around 1931, after the central road was completed and opened to traffic, it was on the east side of the drum tower. Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan Road, Baotai street and Zhongyang Road meet. For this purpose, an oval central roundabout with a long diameter of 42 meters and a short diameter of 18 meters was built to become a roundabout. Today's Gulou square is reconstructed and expanded on the original basis.

Gulou square

Gulou square is located in the central area of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. It is the traffic road square of Nanjing and one of the important junction hubs of Gulou District and Xuanwu District.

The construction of Gulou square started in March, 1939, was completed and put into use in September, 1939, and the renovation project of the center green island was completed on October 28, 2016.

The total area of Gulou square is 38733 square meters;

In 1994, the daily traffic volume of Gulou square was 100000 vehicles / day, reaching 20000 vehicles / hour during peak hours.

Historical evolution

In 1934, the Nanjing municipal government of the Republic of China completed the construction of Zhongyang Road. Five roads, including Zhongshan Road, Zhongshan North Road and Baotai street, intersected in the Gulou area, forming a new transportation hub in the urban area. Therefore, the Nanjing municipal government of the Republic of China decided to build the Gulou area in 1935 In the autumn of 2002, the "New Street (square) was imitated to open up a square" and the buildings around the square were demolished. However, this project was delayed for many reasons, until June 1937, the circular road of the square was not built.

In March of the 28th year of the Republic of China (1939), the puppet reform regime "Nanjing special municipal government" began to build the Gulou Mopan road safety island (: the oval ring Island, with a long north-south diameter of about 42 meters and a short East-West diameter of about 18 meters), in order to further improve the traffic safety situation here. In September, after the completion of the project of Mopan road safety island in Nanjing Drum Tower Square, the authorities decided to erect a "memorial tower for the first week of the founding of the reform government" in the center of the square, leaving a permanent "memorial" as a landmark building.

On February 19, 1942, Wang puppet's "Central Propaganda Department" closely cooperated with the situation and decided to transform the "memorial tower of the early Zhou Dynasty" originally erected in the center of Gulou square into "memorial tower of defending East Asia". The reconstruction project of the tower is "designed by experts", which adopts Chinese "palace architectural pattern, full of Oriental color". After the renovation, the upper part of the tower is still a square pavilion with a single eaves on the top of the hill. The north and south sides of the tower are replaced with the words "commemorating the defense of East Asia", while the East and west sides are marked with the words "implementing the new national movement".

In 1946, Nanjing special municipal government was established According to the file of "two points of commercial restoration of yijiangmen to Arc de Triomphe, stone inscription and removal of the memorial tower of the restoration capital of the puppet government building and the establishment of the bronze statue of the chairman" by the Secretariat of the temporary participants of Hanshi City, the square tower built in the center of Gulou square by the puppet regime has been "demolished" and flowers and trees have been planted here. It is planned that it will be used for the erection of the bronze statue of Chiang Kai Shek in the future.

In 1958, the Gulou square was expanded.

In February 1959, the expansion project of Gulou square was completed, and the whole square was expanded into an oval ring road.

After 1980, the Nanjing municipal government decided to transform the area within the oval ring road of Gulou square into a large lawn with flowers and trees. During major festivals or activities, some plant sculptures or symbols with specific colors were built.

In 1996, the Nanjing municipal government transformed a piece of land in front of the south side of Gulou square into the first public leisure green square in Nanjing.

In 1998, the East expansion project of Gulou square phase II was completed.

In December 2001, due to the construction needs of the Metro Gulou station, the enclosure construction of the motorway on the west side of Gulou square was carried out.

On October 28, 2016, Gulou square completed the renovation project of the center green island.

position environment

Located in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, China, Gulou square is the intersection area of Gulou District and Xuanwu District. It is about 3.9km away from the east line of inner ring road in the east of Jiuhua Mountain, about 100m away from Gulou Park in the west of Yunnan Road and Caochangmen, about 2.8km away from the West line of inner ring road in the west of Nanjing City, about 2km away from Xuanwu Lake Park in the north, Xuanwu Lake Tunnel in the South and Xinjiekou in the south It is 2 km away from Xinjiekou square, Hanzhong Road and Zhongshan East Road. There are Beijing East Road, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan Road and Central Road, all of which are urban trunk roads.

Design scale

Design features

Gulou square is an island traffic square with central landscape. The green island in the center of the square is arc-shaped, with a central green island. There are four driving lanes on the outside of the Green Island, and non motorized lanes and sidewalks on the four directions of the lanes. The square adopts the design of counter clockwise traffic direction and segmented traffic flow confluence to the north.

Design parameters

The average ground elevation of Gulou square is 18.22 meters, 7 meters higher than that of Nanjing City, and the maximum longitudinal slope is 3.1%; the total area of the square is 38733 square meters, including 10123.5 square meters of roadway, 3438 square meters of sidewalk, 9% and 25172 square meters of grassland, 65%. The Central Green Island is 150 meters long and 60 meters wide, with a total area of 5300 square meters.

Equipment and facilities

Electronic monitoring

As of July 2016, Nanjing traffic management department has installed electronic police monitoring equipment in Gulou square to photograph and expose traffic violations such as vehicle retrograde, lane changing driving not in accordance with regulations, one-way running, illegal parking and so on.

 

traffic signal

As of March 2017, Nanjing traffic management department has installed new signal lights in Xinjiekou square to solve the traffic conflict problem and reduce the potential safety hazards at the intersection.

 

Traffic transfer

Track line

According to the official website of Nanjing Metro in June 2020, the metro lines through Gulou square are as follows:

Bus routes

According to the official website of Nanjing public transport in June 2020, Gulou square is equipped with Gulou station, with a total of four bus stops.

Operation

traffic flow

In 1994, the daily traffic volume of Gulou square was 100000 vehicles / day, reaching 20000 vehicles / hour during peak hours.

 

Traffic matters

From June 2019, U-turn and temporary parking are prohibited in Gulou square.

Cultural characteristics

"Happy and peaceful"

The Drum Tower Square is a large green sculpture with peacock as the theme, which is equipped with a central ring island. The green sculpture of "happy and peaceful" is 8 meters high and 70 meters long. The two peacocks in the center of the square are graceful, leading and looking around. They use shape steel as the skeleton, red and green five color grass with lifelike feathers, and use white grass, black grass and yellow grass to show their beauty“ Peacock's vivid eyes; the body feathers are well-defined, with three layers of green plants of Longbai, Yinji Xiaola and Jinye Yingye Ligustrum lucidum, and the feather scales are seasonal flowers. Combined with the green sculpture, the mixed color flower border is designed to create the original ecological habitat atmosphere of "Peacock".

 

Citizen square

In October 2017, the renovation of "Gulou citizen square" to the south of Gulou square was completed and opened to the public, with a total area of about 20000 square meters. It is divided into several activity spaces to meet the needs of the public.

 

Gulou Park

To the west of Gulou square is Gulou Park in Nanjing city. The Gulou Park was built in 1382 of the 15th year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty. It was turned into a Gulou Park in 1923 and listed as a cultural relic of Jiangsu Province in 1957